Thursday, January 05, 2006

Why Siobhan?

Ed has been merrily ripping away at Loyola Hearn for a couple of days now. Well, months on and off, but it's been a pretty steady go the last few days. I'm on the record that I kind of like Hearn even though he's a Conservative. He helped my in-laws out of a jam last October when they were stranded by Hurricane Wilma. And he's always been good to interview.

But Ed doesn't like him, or the Conservatives, and that's fine.

But here's my thing: why should anyone vote for Siobhan Coady? I mean, yeah, it's a pretty resume and all that. But she seems distinctly lacking a personality. And I get no feeling from her, none at all, that she'll be nothing more than yet another well trained, well heeled Liberal backbencher. Or perhaps minor cabinet minister.

But here's the thing. I'm not sure how much, if at all (I haven't looked through his archives) that Ed has promoted how great Coady is and that people should vote her. Instead, it's been how much Hearn sucks and the Conservatives suck and very little of how great the Liberals are and virtually nothing on why Coady will make a fantastic personalrepresentative for the people of St. John's South. Hearn, if nothing else, is a good constituency man. Will Coady be a good constituency woman?

And correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't that one of your long-standing criticisms of the Conservatives? That all they did was attack the Liberals and that they didn't stand for anything other than ripping the other party. Picking up some bad habits, Ed?

He doesn't have to sell me. I don't live there anymore and can't vote in that riding. But hey, it's a radical idea. You might want to consider it. Because really, the constant, unrelenting, and more than occasionally deceptive attacks on Hearn are getting really, really boring.

16 comments:

NIcely put, Craig,Certainly the bias that exists in Ed's blog is overwhelming but is his own right! Of course, the more bias there, the less likely it is to be read or taken seriously by anyone outside of dyed-in-the-wool Liberals and Scott Reid.

Your post was certainly very enjoyable to read, and rightly puts it that despite her best intentions, Ms. Coady's fate as an elected MP representing Ottawa in Newfoundland would well be sealed.

Am I biased against politicians who make claims on their own performance and position not backed by fact?

Yep. Doesn't matter who it is.

Loyola just happens to be the one representing the riding in which I live. And he just happens to be one with a rich history of saying things at odd with the facts or of omitting bits of voting record that might just bear on people's perception of him.

You guys obviously missed the posts where I criticised Liberals. You really missed the one where I called Scott Reid's beer and popcorn comments as assinine.

But then, if you actually noticed the stuff that doesn't fit your biases you wouldn't have much to say about me.

But obviously despite the supposed problems with my blog, it does get read by people with a wide range of opinion.

Well, actually Liam has never demonstrated any examples of deception on my part.

You make an extremely serious accusation. Perhaps you'd like to point one or two out so we can deal with them.

If you are going to make such an accusation, then be prepared to back it up. Otherwise, I'll take the comment as being crap and I'd expect you to withdraw it as being both defamatory and unsubstantiated.

I can document every instance in which I have accused Hearn of misrepresenting himself and the facts.

"Am I biased against politicians who make claims on their own performance and position not backed by fact? Yep. Doesn't matter who it is. "

Sure it does. I've yet to see you explain why any Newfoundlander or Labradorian should vote for more Liberal MPS after their "performance," particularly between June 2004 and June 2005 . . . You never answer that one. You only attack the Conservatives.

For that matter, I've seen you attack Conservative candidates over their age (as you did with Joe Goudie) and yet support an OLDER candidate for Prime Minister.

Your comment about Scott Reid's comment was sandwhiched in reams of text where you essentially try to deflect attention away from one of Martin's top advisors and on to folks like me! It's laughable. Moreover, Ed, you seemed to forget the part where John Duffy repeated the beer and popcorn comments and confirms that this was a line the Liberal war room believed in. . . You were more interested, as was Martin, in deflecting. Of course, if you honestly wanted to show that you (or martin) trusted parents to spend their own money on child care, you would have called for Martin to offer the same parents-choose model of child care but with a larger amount instead you gave a series of posts bitching about the amount the "Connies" offered.

Ed, it's glandular with you.

I've repeatedly criticized the Williams Government on Economics and other matters. I've criticized Harper on his approach in the spring on the Bloc. I've called for policies that aren't supported by the Tories.

The best you can offer to show even the slightest taste of critical thought directed towards the Liberal Party of Canada is five words in a post designed to help them deflect and dodge and lash out at others on an issue and a comment made by one of their higher ups. SAD.

So far, Ed, you haven't documented veyr much at all in your attacks on Norm, Loyola or others in NL politics. You seem allergic to evidence, and when I provided you with some substantive time line on the Accord issue, your response was the same response you gave five times before -- "your post is Gigantic" or "It's really long" or "It's getting old" or "It's lame." That isn't Evidence Ed, that's more name calling and dodging.

Let me see if you can explain the following using concrete, hard FACTS and REASON . . . here are just a few of MANY good questions I have asked you and am asking you once again:

1. When did Loyola Hearn or Norm Doyle vote against their province orthe accord?

5. Why did Paul Martin try to Back Out of 100% as early as a few days after making his mid-election 180 in the campaign?

6. Why did John Efford say that the Accord issue was "too important to be dealt with" in an election campaign while Paul Martin's boys where busy booking a hotel ballroom to "deal" with it just 2 days later in June 2004? Explain that one.

7. Why did Paul Martin refuse to heed the plea of the other major party in the Canada-NL agreement - why did he and John Efford and guys like yourself ignore Bradley Bouzanne's Tely article on April 7 2005 asking for the fast tracking and seperation of the deal that never once listed the hundreds of budget proisions as a contingent part of that agreement?

And here are some more basic questions:

8. Why are you voting Liberal? Any posiitve reason? Any "why" incision there? Answer with some substance? or is it just all attacks?

I'm more than willing to explain why the Tories earned my vote this time. Can you at least try to offer the same reasoning?

1. Hearn and Doyle voted against C-48 which would have had the effect of defeating the government and putting in abeyance any legislation (including the budget measures like the offshore deal) until a future date. Harper said publicly it would have taken a year to get the thing back before the House.

As with Kerry, they voted for it before they voted against it.

This is not merely my position. it is the view of literally thousands of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who sent these gentlemen e-mails. it is the view of the PC supporter who last spring said publicly he would have a hard time campaigning for Hearn and Doyle based on what had occured.

As further evidence of the political problems these gentlemen faced, I refer you to their own comments. They were not able to vote as did Matthews and Simms. They could not do it. Instead, their party came up with the voting two-step.

In and of itself, that speaks volumes for the tolerance of leaders to dissent within their own caucuses.

2. Your charcaterisations of responses to the Young commission ignore the fact that they were never presented to anyone for action. There was supposed to be a follow-on since the report was a discussion document.

Until December 2003, the Government of Canada consistently held that the original deal was agreed to and therefore was the way to approach offshore revenues.

Again, as you have done repeatedly, you fail to point out that the position of the Government of Canada under both Conservative and Liberal administrations, until the current PM changed the position, was that the deal was the deal.

The PM accepted the Premier's position as the basis for discussion in January 2004. Those discussions began, however, the provincial government failed to provide anything beyond a slide show and did little if anything to pursue the discussions until October 2003. I have the documentation and can easily provide it.

Again you misrepresent the Harper position as you have done repeatedly. Mr. Harper never ever accepted the Premier's proposition that there should be a separate agreement with NL and/or NS to provide those provinces alone Equalization cash outside the Equalization program.

Mr. Harper proposed a reform of the Equalization program. his comments last spring about the offshore deal taking "a year" fit into the context of a revamp of Equalization, if such a deal could be amde, as opposed to agreeing to the provincial position on any level.

I draw your attention to premier Williams' comments in The Express in June 2004. He clearly indicated the Harper proposal could only be evaluated for two years. By contrast the understanding on general ideas he reached with the PM met his requirements.

Of course, the oddest thing in all that remains that the singular best example of the miserable attitude of some federal politicians to this province remains the position of John Crosbie in 1990.

You have never said a single comment critical of that position. Rather you repeatedly criticise me for dredging up the past, as if that really served as a riposte to Mr. Crosbie's deplorable comments.

Then you launch into a rant about Trudeau.

Would that you said anything critical of Mr. Crosbie's remarks to equal anything I have said of individual Liberals.

3. As noted above, there was no discussion in detail which is required to establish anagreement that can be implemented. No actual negotiations and discussion of detail began until October 2004. The province submitted its first proposal at that time. The previous slide show was merely a statement of claim, at best.

4. Your statement is simply false. At no point did the Prime Minister fail as you claim. Please provide evidence (other than media reports) to back your claim.

The political atmospherics and claims made by a number of people do not constitute evidence of anything other than the efforts to mount a political campaign as opposed to negotiating a deal. Such an option was available from January 2004 until October 2004. You'd have to ask Danny Williams why he elected to pursue the course he did.

As for the flag thing, i draw your attention to a number of things.

First there is the level of public condemnation the Premier received from across the coutnry.

Second, there is the constant series of changes the Premier's flag position udnerwent from the time it went downt to the moment it surprisingly went back up despite none of his conditions having been met.

Third is the poll commissioned by the Williams administration that showed the high level of public condemnation of his actions. Despite the best efforts to push respondents to a particular choice, on the flag issue, there was condemnation for the premier across the country.

5. The PM never "backed out" of anything. Again, your claim has no foundation in fact. I point to the actual agreement from January 2005 which satisfied all the Premier's requirements, by his own acknowldgement.

As well, and as you conveniently ignore, the very first clause confirmed that the premier's claims on the federal government taking money from the province were, in a word, false.

6. Ask John Efford. The man did a great many assinine things. I don't speak for him and thankfully never will.

7. The "fast-track" was merely an effort to manoeuvre so that local Conservatives would not be hoist on their own nationalist petard. Your return to this point undermines your previous contention (implicit in point 1) that Hearn and Doyle never voted against the province.

8. The why I am voting Liberal piece will be posted in due course.

You found the child care peice personally difficult. I stand by it.

I criticised Reid as strongly as you. Your difficulty is that the position you support does not provide choice as I already posted on my own blog. I am sorry if you feel uncomfortable being lumped in with Scott Reid but I am afraid you'll have to live with the position you defend.

Rather than criticise your own party's position for being insubtsantial, your response is to challenge others to fix the problem. to call that lame would be an insult to lame.

The length of your posts, as I have often noted, do not constitute evidence. On the Accord matters you repeatedly make claims and attribute motives despite substantive documentary evidence to the contrary.

On Joe Goudie, you saw what you wanted to see. My point was simply that after a lengthy search, the very best canddiate they could find was a genltemen who had retired from politics over 20 years ago. It was patent evidence of the difficulties the Conservatives had in finding candidates locally.

Of course, at the end of it all, nothing is more amazing than your latest posting which, in effect, would see the defeat of both conservatives in the St. John's and Mount Pearl seats. It may have seemed like a clever effort to take control of the strategic voting issues. In practical effect it only reinforces the vote against the gentleman you support.

I'm glad you mentioned C-48. It's a perfect example of how fast the federal Liberals can move when they want to. Paul Martin could have kep his own promise and agreed-to our province's demands in the fall of 2004. If, in a desperate effort to pull in NDP support in order to prop up a tired and corrup government, the Liberals can draft legislation in a day or two, why didn't they do it in Fall 2004? Why didn't they do it in early early spring of 2005? Why did they hold the Accord deal hostage?

Keeping his promise to NL wasn't one of Paul Martin's priorities.

Neither Loyola Hearn nor Norm Doyle once voted against the Accord. The situation you described was completely the fault of the Liberal government -- and the Liberals who were going on about "jeopardizing" the accord were essentially uttering threats. The only way the accord was "jeopardized" was if the Liberals wanted it to be. And they did their best to imply it.

It wasn't hard to tell that if they had gotten an election and gained a majority, they probably would have repealed it.

I'm also glad that you mentioned the Royal Commission on our place in Canada, even if your response borders on the insane. Are you saying that if the Young Commission report wasn't presented through whatever your interpretation of the "proper channels" is, the recommendations chouldn't be implemented?

Get real. It was available. Chretien and his ministers disagreed with the key recommendations.

The Prime Minister of Canada had every reason in the world to give up the ghost and admit that we needed a new deal AT LEAST as soon as when that Commission reported, if not sooner.

Your flimsy "basis for discussion" stuff in 2004 doesn't change the fact that Paul Martin was the last to come to the table with a commitment. Everything is a "basis for discussion." It means nothing . . . especially coming from a Prime Minister who even after he finally did the mid-election 180 turnaround and promised something more, still found a way to backpeddle and keep this province on hold for months and months.

It was the Liberal PM who tried to threaten NL with our own deal. Unless he was not willing to honour the deal in full or retroactively, why would he suggest the deal was in "jeopardy?"

You go on to do your usual vietnam flashback to 1990 where you're fighting against the now-retired John Crosbie. Of course, this was right after you tried to dismiss the Royal Commission which based its recommendation to finally reform and address the clawback problem on the research paper by John Crosbie where recommends a new deal himself!. He did say a very stupid thing in 1990. He then made up for it. Meanwhile, in 2003, Paul Martin and John Efford's line was the arrogant "There is no clawback." So what is your point? The architects of the old Accord admitted there was a need for some changes to reflect the circumstands. The people you think should be running this country disagreed.

Your answer to my question #3 isn't telling me why Paul Martin didn't get the damn promise signed sealed and delivered, it merely states that there was no negotiation. It's a dodge. It's a non-answer. WHY wasn't there movement? WHY didn't Paul Martin's government get cracking on this?

". . . Williams said he thought Ottawa had agreed to a deal allowing Newfoundland and Labrador to keep all its oil revenues.

Ottawa is offering an eight-year deal that would give the province 100 per cent of offshore oil revenues.

But it would include a cap to keep Newfoundland and Labrador from surpassing the per capita tax revenue of Ontario.

Williams says that cap would cost the provincial government billions of dollars in lost revenue over the life of the Hibernia, Terra Nova and White Rose Oil fields.

Meanwhile, the provincial opposition parties want an emergency session of the House of Assembly so they can lend their support to Premier Williams.

Liberal leader Roger Grimes says his party and the New Democrats are prepared to support a resolution endorsing Williams' rejection of Ottawa's proposal. . ." CBC NL October 26 2004

There are many other examples.

My statement is simply correct. So please Ed, explain why Paul Martin tried to back out of what it was he had promised. . .

This time answer the question instead of dodging it.

Your comments on the flag only show how you're willing to side with Ottawaites over Newfoundland and Labrador during the time when even the province's Liberals and NDPers supported the premier's efforts.

Your answer to # 5 indicates that you believe it was totally reasonable for the Prime Minister to try to low ball and BACK OUT of what it was he promised in June 2004. He did indeed try his best to back out. And if it hadn't been for intense pressure from people like Premier Williams, Roger Grimes, Loyola Hearn, Kevin McCann, and Norm Doyle, there never would have been a January 2005 agreement. Martin refused to agree to this provinces demands and keep his OWN promise until he was all but shamed into doing so. The fact that you ignored the link I provided in #5 shows how much in the way of facts you're willing to ignore in order to defend the dishonourable conduct of Paul Martin and the way he treated this province.

In #6 you try to act as if John Efford, the man who was this province's "Strong" representative in the federal cabinet was some sort of lowly loose cannon. He was supposed to be representing us and our demands in Ottawa and instead he came back and scolded us for bringing the issue up. His fellow federal Liberal candidates in NL followed suit . . . right up until they all turned 180 and booked the room for Martin's announcement. I ask again -- why?

An ever better question -- why would you ahve supported elected such peopel given those actions? Or do you admit that John Efford didn't deserve to get elected?

On #7 you seem incapable of explaining why Paul Martin ignored the demand of the premier on April 7 in the Tely to seperate and fast track the Atlantic Accord.

you describe it as " an effort to manoeuvre so that local Conservatives would not be hoist on their own nationalist petard.

I ask again -- why not expedite it? Why did Paul Martin refuse to pass it in fall or early 2005? Why? Why do you dodge that one.

Let me refresh your memory a little:

Click Here and see the april 6 CBC story where Paul Martin says he wouldn't fast track or seperate the deal, as the story puts it:

"Prime Minister Paul Martin called that idea nonsense, and said the Conservatives were trying to take credit for a Liberal initiative."

When is that good reasoning behind delaying the accord and refusing to heed the requests of not only the opposition but also the premier of NL?

Why would Paul Martin say that unless he believed the deal could be seperated and fast tracked months early?

Again Ed, you ignore all of this.

On child care, Ed, you bitch about the amount of money ($1200/year) the Tories offer to each parent with kids and then support a party that would give all funding to more government beauracrats and provide $0 and 0 benefit for most of the parents of children in rural NL where your urbanite cookie-cutter approach to child care doesn't fit. . . .

On Joe Goudie, you got caught. plain and simple. If you wanted to talk about when Joe Goudie retired, you didn't need to insult the man for being born in 1939 and pointing out that he was alive when "hitler invaded poland". You're spinning pretty heavy now that you got caught making fun of a man's age while you support a candidate for Prime Minister who is older than Joe Goudie. Instead of evaluating Joe Goudie for his views and actions and record, you couldn't resist getting in some irrelevant cheap shots.

On my most recent post, you seem incapable of concieving of a post where I might discuss with peopel I know won't vote the same way as me something about this election . . . and that is their other options in the election.

Maybe you can't concieve of why anyone would vote anything But Liberal. Most of us are mature enough to understand that not every post must be more cheerleading . . .

oh wait, I'm talking to a guy who wants Paul Martin as prime Minister even after he held this province's offshore deal hostage for months on end and tried to vary the terms. . . . cheerlead is all you've got Ed!

Also Ed - why is it that the policy reasoning behind why you vote Liberal is a secret held back? Are you a political blogger or a press release machine? Craig asked a simple question. If you don't know the answer to it by now, it's a sad state of affairs. . . .

It's ok if it's something to do with past jobs or something similar. . .

If nothing else, I have new found respect for Ed in one regard...all I wanted to know was why people should vote for Siobhan. Not why they should vote against Hearn, but what makes Coady such a remarkable person that people should vote for her.

Simple enough question. I have no idea why Ed doesn't want to say, but ok.

But he doesn't. And if you're a good PR person (and apparently, Ed is a very good PR person) you can spin the subject of debate away from what is being discussed and bog it down or discuss something you want discussed.

I know it won't work, but I'll try again: Why Siobhan? You don''t have to post it here; put it on your own blog. But I would like to know.